Free City of Dragons by Kelli Stanley Page B

yourself. Don’t—don’t track the Takahashi case.”
    She was already half turned toward Stockton when Miranda put a hand on her arm. “Betty—what’s—”
    The girl shook herself, pulling away from Miranda’s arm, and scuttled down the hill. Her head was down, but from the angle of her neck, Miranda could tell she was scanning both sides of Clay Street.
    The Memory Box was shut and dusty. The only way to open it was with some scotch. Or rye. This time it was rye, neat, a little ice, the moisture beading on the glass, the cubes making that oh so pleasant clink of conviviality. Good times. Memories.
    She was sitting by the window, her usual seat when she couldn’t sleep. She’d gone to the fashion show, noticed the dresses were getting shorter, didn’t notice Betty. Betty was gone. Rick was gone. Miranda was alone, but again, she was used to it. She even liked it that way, most of the time.
    Just her and the Memory Box. And the scotch. Or was it rye?
    The fireworks were all the Chronicle said they’d be. She’d stood up in Portsmouth Square, next to a young couple who didn’t know any better than to be happy. She’d watched them, watched them watching the sky, her red lips gasping, making an O of delight while he held her, held her close and whispered. When the firework that showed refugees from the U.S.S. Panay lit them up, lit the sky, and the crowd gasped, not sure whether to applaud or stay silent, the girl with the red lips got teary and he held her tighter and then they went away. Miranda was alone.
    She came back to the apartment, tried some music, but it was all Someone to Watch Over Me and Just the Way You Look Tonight and I’ve Got You Under My Fucking Skin. So she figured what the hell. If the radio was going to do that to her, she’d play along. She took out the Memory Box.
    She kept them in there so they wouldn’t spill over and make an hour or a minute suddenly messy and sodden. The pain she hid well and buried deep, mixed and swirling, rye on ice, indissoluble from memory, and locked in the same box.
    She tried to throw away the key, but it always came back.
    1937.
    They made love in a small clay house, in a bed that was a straw mattress and too small for one of them and so just big enough for both. He insisted on going to “where the action is.” They argued. She lost. They made love some more, eating some dry cheese and bread they’d stored in the wardrobe and drinking from a jug that fit under the bed.
    The taste of his skin filled her mouth. His lips on her body. Inside her. Johnny.
    “Go back to New York.”
    “Not when you’re here.”
    “Randy—I’ve got to go. You know that.”
    “I know the paper is paying you to cover the war, not fight it.”
    “Same thing.”
    “No it isn’t. You don’t need to go to the front.”
    “I won’t argue with you.”
    The sun would rise soon. They could feel the light coming, and their bodies responded with urgency, blending together as if the force would stop the earth, stop the sun, stop the time. More wine. Not enough.
    “I mean it, Rand—go back to New York.”
    “I trained to be a nurse.”
    “How can I do my job if you’re there? At least go back to the capital. Wounded men are everywhere in this poor goddamned country.”
    “I want to be close to you.”
    He couldn’t answer her, just held her close. She felt his lungs expand, his heart beating. She felt him warm and strong next to her. She was happy.
    Another building. Gray Spanish hospital, the sleepy decay of a few hundred years crawling on the walls like ivy.
    There were men in there. Old men, young men, but always poor men. The Americans and Europeans sometimes had money, but never the Spanish. She looked at them, the harrowed, lined faces, the dust-dried skin, the corroded bodies, twisted like barbed wire. The pain. It was everywhere. If you were blind you could smell it. If you were deaf you could taste it.
    There were women, too. Separate ward, until they ran out of